Comic duo David Baddiel and Frank Skinner’s football song Three Lions has shot to number one on the UK singles chart despite England’s semi-final defeat to Croatia in the World Cup.

The comedians’ collaboration with band The Lightning Seeds has set a new record in the process.

It is now the first song in the charts’ 66-year history to have four spells at number one with the same line-up of artists.

The Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie (left) and comedians Frank Skinner (middle) and David Baddiel originally released Three Lion in 1996. (PA)

The track previously topped the charts twice in 1996, the year it was originally released to coincide with the European Championships in England.

It later spent three weeks at the top when it was re-released for the 1998 World Cup.

This week, Three Lions netted impressive 80,000 combined sales this week to exceed its hat-trick.

According to the Official Charts Company this tally was made up of 43,000 sales, 6.8 million audio streams and 5.2 million video streams.

Other songs such as Do They Know It’s Christmas? and Unchained Melody have reached number one four times before, but they were performed by different artists or groups on different occasions.

Three Lions, with its chorus of “Football’s coming home”, has been a terrace anthem among England fans at every major tournament the team has competed in since its release.

Its revival has been sparked by England’s run at this year’s World Cup in Russia, which ended when they lost 2-1 to Croatia on Wednesday.

Joking about the unfortunate timing of their number one, Baddiel, 54, said: “Well, this is awkward.”

Skinner, 61, added: “I must say, as consolation prizes go…”

After counting down this week’s chart, BBC Radio 1 Official Chart host Scott Mills said: “England gave us everything at this World Cup.

“The whole country got swept away with it, and Thee Lions being the official number one shows how we really got behind our amazing team.”

BBC Radio 1 Official Chart host Scott Mills said the success of Three Lions reflected the country’s support foe the England football team. (Official Charts Company)

Three Lions rose 23 places to bump last week’s chart-topper Shotgun by George Ezra down a place to number two.

England fan Ezra had urged fans to buy and stream Three Lions to knock his own song from the top of the charts.

Clean Bandit and Demi Lovato stayed at number three with Solo while Canadian rapper Drake had the highest entry at four with In My Feelings. His song, featuring vocals from the late Michael Jackson, Don’t Matter To Me, slipped to five.

Following a Facebook campaign to get punk band Green Day’s American Idiot back into the charts in time for US President Donald Trump’s UK visit, the song is at number 25.

There was better news for Drake on the albums chart where his LP Scorpion celebrated a second week at number one. Ninety per cent the album’s total sales from this week were based on streaming.

There are new entries at number three for Years & Years with Palo Santo, while singer-songwriter Tom Grennan’s Lighting Matches is the week’s biggest vinyl album at five.